“Well, in all my experience,” said the magistrate solemnly, “I never heard or imagined such a case as this; it is quite unprecedented. I really am at a loss how to act. To my mind, the best course is to grant another remand, to admit of the appearance of the child—a—I mean lady, in the witness box. I think what she says is reasonable. Under the extraordinary circumstances, we could barely expect her to give evidence to-day. She must be shaken by her unparalleled experiences. As for you, madam,” he continued, addressing Prudence, who was still weeping hysterically, “I must express my regret for having doubted what I now perceive to have been a truthful and unvarnished narrative. My excuse must be that your sister’s experience has been so exceptional, that neither I nor anyone who heard it could be expected to believe it without positive confirmation. This has been unexpectedly supplied, and I think I may say you leave this court without the smallest suspicion on your bonâ fides.”
There was a round of applause from the gallery, instantly suppressed, and Prudence, weeping, blushing, smiling, and bridling, all at the same time, walked out of court with the shivering Augusta.
By this time the latter had assumed the appearance of a girl about eight, with bare feet, and toes to which still adhered the rent fragments of a baby’s knitted woollen bootees. The news had spread, and a dense crowd had collected at the door of the police court to see them pass. Prudence drew back terrified at the sight, and a friendly policeman, seeing her agitation, summoned a cab to a side door, and placed the sisters in it. As they drove off, the baulked and excited crowd perceived them, and a tremendous round of cheering woke the echoes of Arrow Street.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCLUSION.
Of our story little remains to tell. Augusta was driven to her sister’s lodgings and put to bed. In less than twenty-four hours she had arrived once more at the time of life she had temporarily abandoned. Her experience had been a disappointment, but her intense relief in feeling that she was once more in command of the helm, prevented her dwelling on that. It was delightful to array herself once more in her own clothes, to be no longer a helpless infant, pinched, tweaked, starved, insulted to her face. The joy of being able to speak was in itself so intense that Miss Semaphore was in a constant flow of good humour, and in all her experience of her sister, Prudence never had so good a time.
After the first excitement had cooled down, she feared that Augusta would be morose, soured by the failure of her experiment; but no. She seemed to find perennial satisfaction in contrasting her present state with that she had so unwillingly endured. The great drawback to her happiness was the notoriety given to her case. Three times the sisters had to change lodgings, because of the curiosity they excited amongst their neighbours, and the crowds that collected to watch them pass in or out.
When the trial came on the following week, Arrow Street was crowded to suffocation. All the boarders from Beaconsfield Gardens were once more in the front row, and unbounded interest was excited by the evidence of Prudence. The papers were full of the circumstances. The Daily Telegraph published a leader on it, would-be interviewers made the life of the sisters a misery. Their supposed portraits, horrible caricatures that their own mother would have failed to recognise, appeared in the halfpenny evening papers. The sixpenny weeklies sent artists to sketch them as they sat in court. The medical press took the matter up. Samples of the Water of Youth were called for to be analysed, but without avail, since Mrs. Geldheraus and her mysterious potion had disappeared into the Ewigkeit.
Never were inoffensive and obscure women dragged so suddenly into notoriety. A wax model of Augusta was set up at Madame Tussaud’s, and the baby clothes she was wearing when taken to the workhouse were shown in a glass case. She netted £700 by their sale, which she looked on as in a measure compensatory for her outlay on the Water. The devotion of Prudence to her sister was everywhere commented on. She became quite a popular personage, and to her surprise and delight, received no less than five offers of marriage from persons totally unknown to her.
While their interest in the case was unabated, the medical woman, Mrs. Whitley, Mrs. Dumaresq, and the other boarders, felt somewhat shy of making any advances to the sisters. Soft, and gentle, and foolish, as Prudence was, they felt that she could not and would not forgive their impertinent curiosity and interference; and yet there was much to excuse their conduct, for such cases as Miss Semaphore’s are rare. When the sisters were finally making their way out of court, having heard good Mrs. Brown condemned to a term of six months imprisonment with hard labour, Major Jones, however, rushed forward, and with a profound sweep of his hat, requested permission to escort them to the hansom in waiting. He did not say “good-bye” until he had asked for and obtained leave to call on them, a privilege of which he henceforth took frequent advantage.
There is an opinion afloat, this time not merely in the mind of Prudence herself, but in the minds of the boarders at Beaconsfield Gardens, that the younger Miss Semaphore will before long be requested to change her name. Since her painful experience, her character has developed. She is more self-reliant, steadier, less unduly girlish in her ways and dress, and seems likely, if her mature love affair runs smooth, to make an excellent wife for the Major. Should her future, as it promises, prove happier than her past, she, for one, despite the mental agony she struggled through, will not regret the temporary rejuvenation of Miss Semaphore.